This may not be a viable option for you - but I get to visit metal recyclers
periodically, and they have Pallets - mountains of them - filled with discarded
keyboards, etc.   If you have a local recycler anywhere, you could grab 10 of
them for what they get for scrap, which isn't much because it's mostly plastic.

If you deal with hardware, they're a great place to visit, since they have
unbelievable quantities of "old" computers, hard drives, memory, USB devices,
keyboards, monitors, cell phones and batteries, cables - you name it.  And you
buy it by the ... SHIFT-3.

With regard to keys and keyboard layouts, I had a minor struggle with getting
the right keyboard setup on a Raspberry Pi recently, but doing enough research
finally ironed that all out.

I have a Dell SK-8135 that I picked out of a scrap heap - it had some dirt and a
few sticky keys, but it works flawlessly.  The integral volume knob only works
on my MS Surface in one direction - which is apparently an issue with this
keyboard and many OSs.   [Note the stylistic correctness of my omission of the
apostrophe.]

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> Tell me about it. The German keyboard layout shares exactly five(!)
> punctuation character locations with the US one, AND has two letter keys
> swapped.

The first time I got in front of a German kezboard it took me about five 
minutes to find the @ symbol.

BUT the biggest problem for me is that German kezboards don't have a 
Caps Lock, but actually a Shift Lock. So if you want to type something 
that's all-caps with numbers (eg a product key, UK postcode or 
something) you are either going to get a mess or a worn out shift key.

Post a reply to this message

On 8/4/2015 10:05 AM, scott wrote:
>> Tell me about it. The German keyboard layout shares exactly five(!)
>> punctuation character locations with the US one, AND has two letter keys
>> swapped.
>
> The first time I got in front of a German kezboard it took me about five
> minutes to find the @ symbol.
>
> BUT the biggest problem for me is that German kezboards don't have a
> Caps Lock, but actually a Shift Lock. So if you want to type something
> that's all-caps with numbers (eg a product key, UK postcode or
> something) you are either going to get a mess or a worn out shift key.
>

Have you tried using a French keyboard?
I was once given a m/c with a Croatian keyboard. I won't even try to 
describe it. I put it in the bin and passed the test. :-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

> Have you tried using a French keyboard?
> I was once given a m/c with a Croatian keyboard. I won't even try to
> describe it. I put it in the bin and passed the test. :-)

No, never a French one, but I had plenty of Japanese ones at my last 
job. They seem to work fine (apart from using the Yen symbol instead of 
the backslash symbol for directory separators) until you press the right 
(wrong) key combination which switches you into Japanese text entry. 
Still, you can make it look like you are good at typing Japanese by just 
punching random keys continuously :-)

Post a reply to this message

On 8/4/2015 10:31 AM, scott wrote:
>> Have you tried using a French keyboard?
>> I was once given a m/c with a Croatian keyboard. I won't even try to
>> describe it. I put it in the bin and passed the test. :-)
>
> No, never a French one, but I had plenty of Japanese ones at my last
> job. They seem to work fine (apart from using the Yen symbol instead of
> the backslash symbol for directory separators) until you press the right
> (wrong) key combination which switches you into Japanese text entry.
> Still, you can make it look like you are good at typing Japanese by just
> punching random keys continuously :-)
>
>

Who is the Japanese equivalent of Shakespeare? :-)


-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Le 04/08/2015 12:04, Stephen a écrit :
> On 8/4/2015 10:31 AM, scott wrote:
>>> Have you tried using a French keyboard?
>>> I was once given a m/c with a Croatian keyboard. I won't even try to
>>> describe it. I put it in the bin and passed the test. :-)
>>
>> No, never a French one, but I had plenty of Japanese ones at my last
>> job. They seem to work fine (apart from using the Yen symbol instead of
>> the backslash symbol for directory separators) until you press the right
>> (wrong) key combination which switches you into Japanese text entry.
>> Still, you can make it look like you are good at typing Japanese by just
>> punching random keys continuously :-)
>>
>>
>
> Who is the Japanese equivalent of Shakespeare? :-)
>
>

Chikamatsu Monzaemon

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On 8/4/2015 11:36 AM, Le_Forgeron wrote:
>>
>> Who is the Japanese equivalent of Shakespeare? :-)
>>
>>
>
> Chikamatsu Monzaemon

I saw that using Google but you cannot trust a quick google. Without 
more research. :-)

Anyway the question says more than it asks. ;-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>> No, never a French one, but I had plenty of Japanese ones at my last
>> job. They seem to work fine (apart from using the Yen symbol instead of
>> the backslash symbol for directory separators) until you press the right
>> (wrong) key combination which switches you into Japanese text entry.
>> Still, you can make it look like you are good at typing Japanese by just
>> punching random keys continuously :-)
>>
>>
>
> Who is the Japanese equivalent of Shakespeare? :-)

I didn't have *that* much time!

Post a reply to this message

On 8/4/2015 1:18 PM, scott wrote:
>>> No, never a French one, but I had plenty of Japanese ones at my last
>>> job. They seem to work fine (apart from using the Yen symbol instead of
>>> the backslash symbol for directory separators) until you press the right
>>> (wrong) key combination which switches you into Japanese text entry.
>>> Still, you can make it look like you are good at typing Japanese by just
>>> punching random keys continuously :-)
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Who is the Japanese equivalent of Shakespeare? :-)
>
> I didn't have *that* much time!
>
>

:-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 8/2/2015 6:13 PM, clipka wrote:
> Am 02.08.2015 um 14:30 schrieb Stephen:
>
>> When I used to work for a living. It was fun working on a machine that
>> had lost its CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT
>> The keyboard would revert to US settings but the letters didn't. ;-)
>> Remembering where the  backslash, at sign and inverted comma keys were,
>> was a pain.
>
> Tell me about it. The German keyboard layout shares exactly five(!)
> punctuation character locations with the US one, AND has two letter keys
> swapped.
>
> I never bothered to try and remember the US locatin of characters. All I
> cared about was that typing "kezb gr" (sic!) would usually fix the mess.
>

Nor me. Fortunately my fingers are not directly connected to my brain. 
They did it themselves. Ask me and I can't tell you but put me in front 
of a k/board and it happens. :-)
>
> And then there was the keyboard of my first own PC. One of the things I
> did pretty early after unboxing was to install some Norton Commander
> clone which, as you may recall, made heavy use of the function keys as
> hotkeys for important stuff; I knew most of them by heart.
>

That passed me by. Norton became a resource hog and I stopped using it 
early on.

> So a moment later I was sitting in front of the thing with a puzzled
> expression on my face, struggling to find the F7 key.
>
> "Okay, let's do this systematically," I thought, and went through the
> function key row: "Here's F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F5, F8... Wait, *WHAT?!*"
>
>

LOL. that I can appreciate. :-)

> The good news was that yes, the second F5 key behaved exactly like the
> good old F7 key. Phew! :)
>

Oh! I wonder how that could happen. :-)

> Also, the keyboard was a genuine Cherry keyboard (albeit branded
> differently by the OEM) with easily removable keycaps, so a letter to
> the OEM and a few days later I was able to swap the keycap for a
> properly labeled one.
>

A good ending. :-)

> I think I still have the F5 keycap somewhere.
>

On a chain around your neck? ;-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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